Day 143 – More Finishes to Adair Homes New Home Construction

Inside Work for New Home Construction

This week has been an up and down week for our family. We had a virus that went through the whole family, so we’ve been a little out of it. Luckily, that didn’t stop the contractors from coming and getting work done.

Inside the house they installed the hardwood and vinyl floors. The hardwood really makes the house feel more warm. It took them about two days to do all the hardwood and most of it was done the first day, with some touch up things on the second day. Most of the downstairs will be hardwood and upstairs carpet; with the exception of the bathrooms where we will have vinyl and tile. We chose the Mackenzie Maple by Shaw floors in Bison color for our hardwood.

The other finish item that went in this week was the counter tops. It’s hard to know what everything is going to look like when you’re picking out the finishes using small samples, but the counters came out awesome! We really like how they look, but with the counters installed you can definitely see the off-white contrast of the cabinets. Once we get the cabinets repainted I think it’ll really look nice.

The tile sub-contractor was supposed to be here this week, but he had an injury and a new one had to be lined up. It sounds like he’ll be there next week to get the tile going and is hoping to still keep things on schedule.

The finish carpenter was there to button up a few items on Friday and will be back to do the rest of the trim work in the bathrooms after the tile is installed.

Outside Work for New Home Construction

The outside of the house took on a whole new look with the front porch being poured. We debated on concrete versus wood deck for a while. The initial cost of concrete came out to be a little more than wood, but everyone we talked with said that the long term maintenance of wood is more. Another option is to use a product like Trex decking, however that really increases the overall cost.

Before starting construction we were imaging a shorter porch, but the foundation ended up being a lot taller than we had thought. With the taller foundation we needed to do a taller porch. We were originally thinking that regular concrete would have been ok, but with the taller porch we wanted something more decorative, so we decided to do a stamped and stained concrete front porch. This added a little additional expense but the main expense for the porch is all the rock that we needed to get the porch height to match the height of the foundation.

They were able to get the all the concrete work done this week avoiding any rain and will be back to seal it later. I think it turned out great but can’t wait to see what it looks like once it is sealed.

More Challenges with Rain Garden and the City of Eugene

An on going headache has been the rain garden. Their are two different departments within the city that seem to be in disagreement, the public works engineering department and the inspection department. The city of Eugene requires that that all storm water from new construction be filtered.

One of the options was a rain garden and the way it was described by the public works engineering department it sounded pretty easy to create. Basically, you dig a huge hole that can contain all the rain water from your roof and put plants in it. I built it exactly how they described. I had the inspector out to look at it and he said it was ok to put plants in it, so I proceed to plant it.

Then the inspectors came out again and one inspects the facility and he approved it. The other inspector looked at the plants and he thought that the garden wasn’t draining well, so he went back and talked with the engineering department and then they decided to deny the inspection of the facility.

It had been raining for basically three days straight before they came out, so I’m not sure what they expect. The whole point of the rain garden is to collect all the rain water and then have it infiltrate into the ground. It’s been a little frustrating working with the city on this and they don’t seem to want to offer any help. I called the main manager today and am waiting to hear back. I’m hoping she’ll let us wait until spring to get it fixed or approve what we already have in place.

Things to Come Next Week for Adair Homes New Home Construction

Next week we’re planning on the tile being installed and the finish carpenters to finish with the trim work, so the painters can come back to do the other interior work.

Important Dates for Estimated Schedule of Adair Homes New Home Construction

Tile install – 12/13  12/17
Paint  doors/trim – 12/26-1/6
Plumber, HVAC, electrician back to install fixtures – 1/7
Appliance delivered – 1/10/19
Paint touch up – 1/16
Pre-walk through – 1/18
Close – 1/25

Hope you continue to follow along as we get to the home stretch of the build!